Maverick McNealy: Poised To Build On His 2021 Season

Alex Elias

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Last February, Maverick McNealy found himself in contention at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, firing a superb back-nine 31. Experiencing the pressure of the final stretch for the first time in his career, McNealy admitted he learned just as much from how he started the round as from how he finished it.

"I actually learned more from my bogey on the opening hole than anything else. It was a very timid bogey. I made four decisions, four golf swings that I wasn’t proud of and I realized that the rest of the day, I didn’t care what happened. I just said no matter what happens, I’m going to go about it in a way that I’m proud of. I think from there I played seven under in the next seventeen holes. I don’t think from that point on I backed down from one shot the entire year, which I’m really proud of," said McNealy.
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McNealy concluded the season with a career-best eleven Top-25 finishes and a 58th-place finish in the FedEx Cup standings. Reflecting on the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am as a pivotal moment, McNealy said, "Pebble made me realize how badly I wanted to win. I think the only true measure of how much you want something is what you’re willing to sacrifice for it. I realized there wasn’t anything more important to me than giving myself the best chance to win."

"I finished my year with nine Top-25s out of the last fourteen events and had numerous chances to win. From Pebble onwards, getting that close and seeing how close I was to winning, I was really proud of that and built some really good habits that hopefully I can continue to improve on," said McNealy.

Acknowledging the inevitable highs and lows of life on the PGA Tour, McNealy said, "The biggest challenge in golf is that in the short term, your input and the output you get are so loosely correlated. You can do everything right and get nothing for it and you have to continue to work in good faith that’ll pay off. You have to invest by the day and measure by the decade. You have to invest every single day to be your absolute best, but sometimes you can’t measure by the day because it won’t be reflective of the work you’re putting in."

“You can do the same thing two different weeks and get two completely different results, but that doesn’t mean you need to change what you’re doing. You need to continue doing what you firmly believe is best. You need to be honest with yourself and trust that it’ll pay off,” said McNealy. 

Through his first six starts of the 2022 season, McNealy had already recorded four Top-25 finishes, highlighted by a runner-up showing at the Fortinet Championship. Reflecting on the current state of his game, McNealy said, "I’m really excited about my game, but even looking at my stats, there’s some things I think I can improve on. I think I can improve my fairway and bunker play and I’m continuing to work on my physical fitness. I have been in the gym four times a week this entire offseason, trying to keep myself injury free and ready for a long a career."

"There’s always something to improve on. Every time I go back to a tournament, I want to say I’m better prepared than I was a year ago," said McNealy.